As boomers become seniors, products that offer them a chance to retain the appearance of youth line store shelves and dominate late-night TV infomercials. But do these products perform the almost miraculous cures they claim? Or are they just the latest incarnation of “snake oil”, hustled by promoters such as P.T. Barnum with his travelling medicine shows so many years ago? Back then, fraud and deception were the aim, and innocent audiences were duped with pseudo-scientific terms intended to confuse rather than inform.